PESHAWAR: Psychiat-rists have expressed concerns over growing incidence of suicide, calling upon the people to ascertain the causes and take preventive measures.

“One person commits suicide every 40 second and 60 per cent of them in sub-continent due to lack of self-confidence and awareness among the people about the causes, which result in such fatal outcomes,” psychiatrist Mukhtiarul Haq Azeemi of Lady Reading Hospital told a seminar here on Thursday.

The seminar was organised by Iftikhar Psychiatric Hospital at Islamia College University (ICU) to mark World Mental Health Day.

The theme of the day is “Suicide Prevention”. The seminar was addressed by noted psychiatrists, who called upon the government to recognise mental health as public health issue and scale up public awareness regarding it.

Govt urged to recognise mental health as public health issue

Dr Azeemi said that people shouldn’t force their children to become doctors or get into other lucrative professions but they should give them free hand to pursue their careers in line with their own wishes and capabilities.

Dr Imran Khan of Khyber Teaching Hospital said that Pakistan had 500 psychiatrists, one for 450,000 people and there were 800 Pakistani psychiatrists only in UK and the US. The government needs to attract the psychiatrists to take up jobs here instead of going abroad.

KTH’s Prof Bashir Ahmed said that society should take seriously the people, who talked against life and openly expressed the desire to attempt suicide.

“We should take the warnings seriously as the people attempt knowingly and deliberately. Commonly these people are considered as attention-seekers, but they shouldn’t be taken for granted,” he said.

Prof Naushad Khan, the acting vice-chancellor of ICU, who was chief guest on the occasion, said that he wanted to make mental sicknesses part of curriculum.

“We should create confidence in ourselves and faith in Almighty Allah and our 50 per cent problems will get away. Parents should quit the sense of greed and don’t compel their children to get into professions which fetch them more money,” he said.

Prof Abaseen Yousafzay read a poem he wrote in 1992 about mental health and received applause from the participants.

Psychiatrist Mian Iftikhar Hussain spoke about the protective and risk factors and warning signs of suicide and elaborated the strategy for suicide prevention.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2019

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